and our income was so small. So I can still see my mother sitting by the fire with a faraway look in her good gray eyes as we would talk about the coming festival, and can still hear her saying, "I fear we shall have no Christmas this year, 'childer,' things are so dear." And then life would seem to us not worth living. Still this was always, I think, a false alarm. The wolf never came so near the door as to devour our Christmas. The brave eyes would brighten and the able head begin to plan. There would be a bit of malt from the malster. This was the first move. Then the yule-cakes and the loaf would be made. How good they do smell

still in the baking! And the cheese would be bought, a small one, but always a whole cheese, a bit of beef for the roast. We never attained to the splendor of a goose and the things for the plum pudding, but we never stoned the raisins.

Meanwhile up the stream at Thurscross

Thor's cross the singers and the players on divers instruments had been busy for weeks preparing the Christmas carols; for they were musical up in the glen and had sung once in an oratorio, so it was said. And on Christmas morning, long before it was day, they would

come down through the snow and sing for their first number the fine old hymn,

"While shepherds watched their flocks by night, All seated on the ground,

The angel of the Lord came down

And glory shone around."

(My old eyes grow dim as I listen to the music and the singing after all these years.) And we would rise in haste. The yule-log would be turned, the great candles lighted, the small barrel tapped, the yule-loaf and cheese set out. Largess would be given, with good wishes all round and the invitation to come again when Christmas came round. And along through the day the poor creatures would come with their carols,- God's poor. I have heard brave music and singing in all these years, the best there is; but as I sit here and listen to two of these I think I have never heard any singing besides so near the heart. It was the gift of God to His poor and was saved for Christmas. It was seldom you heard them at other times, but then it seemed as if they had listened to the angels. They knew nothing of music, but the charm was in the heart and they sang. They were very old carols, never rising as I hear them

now so far away above some minor key. And this once in the year, if never again, they did eat and were satisfied as they went from house to house and closed their carols always with the same old strain,—

"God bless the master of this house,
The misteriss also,

And all the little children

That round the table go."

The Christmas tides in my early life were all in the homes. There were no festivals in the churches, no gifts from the altar, no doles for us from dead hands, and no sermons save when the day fell on Sunday. It was just Christmas, but so full of joy for young and old, so warm from the yule-fires and so fragrant with good cheer, that I wonder whether we have not lost track of something even in the great and generous bounty we pour out now, something of the Home Christmas.

II

I must lose no time about getting my education, so I was sent to a dame school near at hand. But after a while the dame set me to do things I loved better than my lessons, and when this came out there was trouble. My mother was not willing to have me work my passage and pay my school wage too. too. So she took me away, but not before I had learned one art at which I became a master, or so said the dame,- the way. to scrape new potatoes. You take them out of fair water and remove the thin silken skin with your thumb. Then I went to a master's school half a mile away. He made me stick to my tasks in which I made some headway, while one little incident gives me a hint of my progress. I was in a temper; he must have scolded me. I made up my mind that he should see what I could do. One word on my battledore caught my eye, the word "good," one letter more

than the rest on the line. I wrestled with that word amain, stood up by the desk, and spelled it out, good, God! He gave me a small crack

with the middle finger on the top of my head as my mother would with her thimble. His finger was hard as bone through much usage in this kind, and I never forgot the tap. The school was closed, the master went away, and I was old enough then to walk to another two miles away near the old church at Fewston where I was baptized. This was a good school, and Master Hardie was a good teacher, but was somewhat given to searching for the springs of what the elder English calls the humanities in the backward boys, as those who have "the gift" search for springs of water on the prairies with a hazel rod; and I think I was a backward boy. Still he lifted me along, doing his best for me; and some three years after this, when I was at work in the factory, he held a night school in our hamlet. I went there one winter and made good progress, climbing upward in figures to the rule of three. I went to a night school another winter after I left home to learn my craft, and this ends the story of my education in the schools.

Now I must return on my way to touch an incident which holds for me a pregnant meaning, as I glance backward to my childhood. The memory comes clear as if it was yesterday,